


in the sleepless night

by redroseinsanity



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Because there's no way I believe this will happen in canon, Depressive themes, Hurt/Comfort, I can't do that shit, M/M, Not a death fic, Post-Canon, cause apparently I can't deal with sadness for too long either
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22908583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redroseinsanity/pseuds/redroseinsanity
Summary: The first thing that Tooru does after Hajime leaves him is to go fuck someone else.This is not a love story.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 56
Kudos: 169





	1. all my truths are silent (all my uncertainties sound like you)

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Depressive themes, a lil' bit of blood (accidental!)

The first thing that Tooru does after Hajime leaves him is to go fuck someone else.

He waits in a house that is too big, that echoes with the sound of Hajime's voice, that now threatens to swallow him alive. He waits for the sound of a key in the lock, he waits for a message, a call, anything.

He curls up on the floor, exactly where he was left and he becomes someone else, a ghost in the middle of a living room full of someone else's happy memories. There's a forgotten shirt that Hajime draped on the sofa and Tooru tugs it off, breathes in the smell so that he can sleep.

Abruptly, he wakes in the night, disoriented and eyes full of salt. At first, he wonders what time it is, why Hajime isn't home yet. Then he remembers and it screams in him, screams like a murder on the street only it's within him and the pain goes on and on and on.

_-selfish -you're not listening. I don't know who you are anymore. I love you but-. I love you. But I don't know how to deal with this. I don't think I can handle this anymore, not if we're not in this together._

He waits until he loses track of the moving shadows and he's dehydrated from all the crying jags, he waits until his hands tremble because he doesn't remember his last meal, he waits and wishes the cool floor underneath would rise up and envelope him and maybe the stabbing feeling in his gut would ease. He waits and Hajime doesn’t come back ~~because he meant it, he was going to leave and he did, he left~~.

Tooru stays and with every beat of his heart, he wills for Hajime to come back to him. For that last, damning fight to have been a dream, for the "I can't do this anymore, you need to sort this out" to have been a hallucination. He hears the whispers of the house coalesce into "he's never coming back" and it keens in him until it's bleeding out of him in broken sounds.

Then he pulls himself up, cleans up a little, swiping at gaunt cheeks, too pale to be alluring. He runs a hand through locks that are due for a wash and can't find it in himself to care. Applies eyeliner with a hand that shakes and smudges.

This pair of jeans was Hajime's favourite so he takes it off before he can start crying again, and throws on something else, something he would have hated, something gaudy and loud, and it bares his collarbones. He unbuttons it even more.

The lights in the club are too bright, dizzying, and Tooru can hardly focus, but they make it easy for him to forget himself, they blind him and make him invisible simultaneously. Just another body in the crowd - erasing him and propelling him into a black hole, pushing him into the dark with a single sweep.

Knocking back one drink on his painfully empty stomach is enough to make the place swing around him, dipping and reeling as he draws in a breath that feels like a knife and throws his gaze into the bobbing sea of people.

Even with his matted hair and his swollen eyes, even with the hollowness in his very being and the despair in his veins, he's a striking figure, a hot mess, and then he's leaning into someone, he doesn't know who, but someone.

He's saying words he doesn't understand - to him they all sound as though he's begging: "make it stop, make it go away, make him come back, please make him-"

Tooru knows it won't work though, his grief is tearing through the alcohol and he's sober with the acuteness of it.

So the first thing he does is attempt to discard himself because he doesn't want to be a Tooru that Hajime doesn't want. He doesn't want to be here, this, him.

Tries to disown his lips by fixing it to another's, tries to abandon his soul by baring his body to someone else, he flings himself into a clumsy imitation of something he used to know, just to stop feeling himself.

A stranger's hands are on his hips but if he closes his eyes he can pretend they're Hajime's. ~~He can't, they don't feel right and he knows it.~~

He loans himself out and allows himself to belong to someone else for the night, as though it would bring Hajime back to him out of spite, out of desperation. Although he doesn't mean to, he falls asleep after, exhaustion drowning him and he sinks, with Hajime's name on his lips, as it has been the whole time.

This is someone else's bed, this is someone else's home, this is someone else, he realises when he jerks awake at pre-dawn. The regret tastes like acid, astringent and repulsive, and he barely makes it to the bathroom before he throws up the nothing in his stomach.

Somehow, he dresses himself, staggers into the street, the early morning light making sure he doesn't trip too often, his gut seizing and his entire body shaking. Everything hurts; his hips, his head, his heart. An initial, instinctive start for home, but then he halts, unable to face it. The empty place that used to be his home until Hajime left and took the home with him.

So he stumbles aimlessly, trying to remember what to do, trying to figure out where to go. There's no more water in him to cry but his body tries anyway, in silent dry sobs that make him heave and sit down on the curb for a while.

He ends up outside Sawamura's house, he doesn't know why but something in him knows that Suga will have the answers. Without knocking, he slumps outside their door, dozes off.

There are panicked voices and a warm secure cradle and Tooru opens his eyes to a frenzied Daichi and Suga, carrying him in and he reaches for Suga like a child for comfort, the tears coming hot and fast, dredging up his reserves and streaming out as he blubbers, the reality settling, crushing. 

"He left, he's gone, he said-" It comes out in between gasps and sobs and he doesn't recognize this strained, weak voice to be his, "I messed up, I don't know how, I don't know why-"

The first few days pass in a blur.

Tooru takes showers and shaves and brushes his teeth, Suga and Daichi tag teaming to clean him up. He drinks bottle after bottle of water and takes disinterested mouthfuls of soup and whatever they try to feed him.

He stays in their guestroom with the curtains drawn and tries not to think about anything at all. At first, he can keep track of the days by the opening and closing of the door as they leave for work and come home, but time melts and turns to sludge, pooling on the floor and he breathes the dim air in, shallow and slow.

Sleep is something he craves and dreads, he closes his eyes and dreams of Hajime's hands, Hajime's voice, Hajime. In his feverish dreams, Hajime smiles at him, that smile he knows is only for him and there is no helplessness in his voice, no disappointment in the way he says 'Tooru'.

Tooru always cries when he wakes up, sometimes he's already sobbing, throat raw and face twisted in the purest expression of pain. He wishes he could sleep forever, he wishes he could slip into the world in which Hajime still loves him and never come back.

Nothing much registers in those first few weeks or even months, nothing makes sense and nothing matters. All he knows is a shrill wail in the well of his soul that never ceases and it rots him from the inside, eating away at his very being until he feels himself caving inward, collapsing into the thin air that's barely holding him up.

In the following weeks, Tooru shatters in the most absolute way; he fissures and fractures and falls apart in ways he didn't know he could. Even when he thinks, _I can't possibly break any further, I can't possibly hurt any more_ , he does and then he does again.

He unravels and finds shards of his old self, his old life, on the floor, in his jeans pockets and when messages come in on his phone, the words blurring and incomprehensible. 

It is in this way, standing among the ruins of himself, surrounded by the shambles of his life, that he begins to see what Hajime had meant and when he does, the stab of regret is dull compared to the way sheer revulsion of himself grips him.

He starts slow, leaves the guest room for meals that he spends trying desperately to find something on his plate appetising before forcing his way through a few mouthfuls that taste like his own despair.

Walks around the house when Daichi and Suga are gone for the day, taking slow turns about the living room that reeks of domestic bliss, of a comfort he used to know, that he used to have. Except now, he's scrabbling in the dirt for water that has been absorbed into the soil, trying to hold on to the liquid that has long vanished into the earth, only to come away with handfuls of dust.

He tries not to let the jealousy devour him, but the remorse does instead as he watches them have silent exchanges and share casual brushes. It gnaws at him, whispering, _You had that. You had all of it but you squandered it._

Suga gets his laptop for him and slowly, he begins answering emails, pours himself into his work and doesn't emerge until he's numb from it. Numb enough that when he comes up for air, he almost doesn't feel the crippling pain that threatens to paralyse and hold him hostage.

For a while, he can almost believe it's getting better, that he can go for stretches without the tightness in his chest. So he goes home, thanks Daichi and Suga with a brittle smile and tries to stand on his own two feet.

The instant he opens the door, he knows it was a mistake, he knows he's not ready, will never be ready and he doesn't know how he could possibly face this, how he could possibly go on in a reality that Hajime is not there to come home to.

There have been no messages, no calls and no news of Hajime. If not for the photographs on the wall, the notes on the fridge, the clothes strewn on the floor, Tooru might almost believe that he had dreamed it all. That this was one long nightmare that he just had to fall out from.

But he trails fingers across frozen smiles in frames and refuses to change the bedsheets, curling into them as though if he tried hard enough he could cleave to a familiar body instead.

He knows Hajime has been in contact with Suga, has seen Hajime’s email address pop up in mail notifications on the other man’s phone. It takes everything in him not to lunge for the phone, snatch it up and grasp for the withering threads of any connection he has to Hajime. Instead, he closes his eyes, entire body trembling, nothing at all functioning and when he looks again, the screen is empty. He can almost pretend he imagined it. 

He tries. He honestly does; he works and he eats when he remembers to and he glosses over the gaping hole inside of him, tamps down the urge to give in to that mindless cry within.

Distantly, he thinks about how silly this is, to fall apart for someone else, and in those moments it's as though he's watching himself from the outside or from above. But it's not just someone else, it's Hajime, and Tooru knows there's a place on the other end of this for him to emerge from, weary but intact, but at the moment, he can't see it and so he pulls himself through each day and tries not to think about anything at all.

A delivery does it. 

It comes for Hajime and Tooru flinches when he hears the name in the delivery person's foreign voice, and with a hand that trembles a little, signs off on it. He doesn't want to open it but he also doesn't know where to send it and just in case it's important, he peeks to check.

His own name catches his eye and frowning, holding his breath, he uncovers the constellation themed musical box that they had passed in a shop window. That day, that life, seems eons ago and yet, Tooru can remember with bittersweet precision the way Hajime's hand was warm and calloused in his, how he had rolled his eyes and tugged Tooru along even as the corner of his lips lifted up.

Yet, here it is, with Tooru's name printed on the accompanying card and tinkling a little charming tune when wound and it's too much.

Tooru can't see, can't feel anything beyond this uprising of emotion that threatens to engulf him and then he's hurling the mug that was on the table at the wall. It smashes, to his satisfaction, it was a gift as well and that clenches deep in Tooru's gut, hurts even more and it feels _good_.

He sweeps an arm out across the dining table next and papers go flying, another cup careens to the floor, spilling tea as it goes and Tooru can't find it in himself to care. Not when he's like this, not when he wants to destroy everything including himself.

A photo frame clatters to the floor, the clock is pitted at the door and leaves a mark where it strikes, bounces; the bathroom trashed, bottles flung haphazardly, in the shower, into the corridor. He pulls hangers from the cupboard and rips clothes from the plastic, feels a cut bloom on a finger and hopes viciously that he will bleed on something expensive, he wants to ruin everything. He wants this entire place to look exactly how he feels on the inside and so he slams a fist into the mirror, can't feel it when his knuckles begin to redden and spots of blood appear.

The glass of the mirror is fragmented, splinters of it showering into the sink and Tooru can't even see himself in the distorted reflection, he only sees a stranger, a monster, someone Hajime doesn't love anymore.

Then he's sobbing, the pain wrenched out of him in gasps of air, watching the stranger's face crumple in a thousand different shards, and he lifts a bloody hand to his mouth as though to stifle the sounds but it's too much and it doesn't stop and he's on the ground, tears mixing with the red, his life in pieces around him.

The curtains are a wreck and the couch looks like a battlefield, the kitchen looks ransacked, nothing in the house has been untouched except for a music box that quavers the final note before going silent, a fragile survivor in the aftermath of Tooru.

He gets it together after that. Or at least, he tries to. A day is spent cleaning up his own mess before he turns to himself and tries to do the same to his insides.

It doesn't go as smoothly so he starts small, tries to rebuild himself into someone better, someone whole. He gropes around for a piece of himself, inspects it and decides if he likes it, if he wants to keep it, before fitting it in like a jigsaw piece, a Tooru 2.0.

Lately, he's been discovering that the pieces he wants to keep are the ones that Hajime loved the most.

After that, he realises that the ones that Hajime loved the most are the ones he had begun with, that he had nurtured and fought with and pushed and pulled until they were defining aspects of him. He also recognises a few that he had let go of to acquire some other trait that he thought would make him more useful, that he thought would make him the best.

It gets to the point whereby he stands back and looks at the person he had constructed in the last five years and realises that none of the good pieces were in there at all.

So he pieces himself back together, and in his head, Hajime is beside him, watching as he finds himself again. It's not so much that he needs Hajime's approval, but it seems that Hajime always seems to have known Tooru better than he did himself, seen Tooru as someone better than he actually is.

The world, Tooru comes to understand, doesn't wait for you. It spins while you grieve and while you try to pretend that life is simply paused, on hold until he returns. Life goes on and people flood by as you remain, grappling with yourself, simply trying to hold it together, too full of cracks to even think about moving forward.

He watches the seasons change, registers the leaves burning red then flourishing into deep green, but inside Tooru, it's eternally winter. In the frozen emptiness within, he remains stagnant as time trickles past, he's always too cold at night, his soul is always aching and it never feels right. Nothing does anymore.

Unlike what everyone else expects, he doesn't sprint to catch up. There's no miraculous return to a promotion and a fast paced life that doesn't let him breathe, doesn't let him feel.

He does consider it, consciously resists the lure of drowning himself in work, but he finds a new job instead. One that doesn't make him drink three coffees a day and leaves his weekends mostly free, it's a slow start, but he finds more meaning in it and that's good enough for him.

He imagines this is what people with conditions that cause chronic pain go through, learns to live with the lead in his lungs and the sensation that his heart is slowly, slowly being bled dry. It's exhausting, to function around it - to hold himself up and to go through the motions just as everyone else does although it costs him double as much.

There's a tightness around his eyes when he smiles and he can't practise it away in the mirror, his laugh sounds as though it's coming from a far off place, so he doesn't do it that much anymore and when he moves, it feels like going through water, slow and weighted.

He doesn't mind, he's not in the race to be the best anymore. He was, but that was before he ended up nearly losing himself in the process, before it cost him the only person he'd ever loved. He's let that boat sail and is content with walking. He doesn't know if he'll end up where everyone else does, doesn't know if he cares, but he's just focusing on existing, on getting through a day at a time.

It takes six months for milk bread to taste like anything to him, and another six for him to track down a bakery that has milk bread exactly like the ones Hajime used to buy for him.

In the same intervals, Tooru starts running again, and within a year, he's back on the court. It's for leisure, but no other sport compares. The bags under his eyes shrink and his face fills out, inching him away from the deathly visage he was sporting in the first few months.

It still hurts. He reckons it always will.

There are days that he forgets, he calls out a _tadaima_ before belatedly remembering no one is waiting for him to get back; he buys Hajime's shampoo only to open the cupboard and find a bottle still unopened. He sets the table for two and only realises after he sits down to eat and then the tightness is crawling up his throat, the little hunger has long fled, abandoning him to a session of shaky inhales as he drops salty tears into his rice. He doesn't clear the extra setting away, it would hurt too much, but he barely makes it through the meal, shoving food into his mouth as the view of Hajime's empty bowl and clean chopsticks waver and blur through a film of tears.

But Tooru breathes in, breathes out, waters his plants and finds some sort of peace in this life he has built.

Breathes in. Breathes out.

Breathes. 

The sun shines, the rain falls, and Tooru finds a new rhythm. He fills in the gaps that Hajime left and when he's pulled up off the ground, he finds that the hand he's gripping isn't Hajime's but his own.

It's strange, but not bad, and Tooru forges on. He gets groceries from the store and remembers to get the right number of eggs; he walks down the street and feels the sun on his face, takes in the little purple buds in the grass; he looks up and sees Iwaizumi Hajime and-

He looks up and sees his Hajime who isn't his anymore and he nearly drops his eggs, struggles to hold onto his bags and himself, and catches most of them (he still loses a bag of oranges).

Iwaizumi Hajime looks wan. Tooru would have thought that without having to deal with him, maybe Hajime would be better off, radiant with a life better lived. But this Hajime, three steps away, has lines that Tooru doesn't remember tracing, has eyebags to rival his own, and a dark depth that Tooru cannot access in his eyes. 

Tooru watches as his own emotions play out across Hajime's face, feels the surprise chased by gut-wrenching longing to reach out across a distance that is far wider than three measly steps reflected on his best friend's expression. The burst of hope, tinier than a raindrop, that sprouts within his soul, is unfamiliar and so improbable that he almost wants to laugh.

He breathes in, can feel every mended crack of where he had broken and fallen apart, the ceaseless sob that wells and wells into unshed tears that crowd his vision.

Breathes out.

"Iwa chan."


	2. i'm not asking for a miracle

"Iwa chan."

In that breathless second, the world quivers into a pinprick before yawning into an overly bright weight that envelops Tooru, squeezes him until he fights for air.

The old Tooru would have faked a winning smile and slung a couple of breezy comments over. He would have gone off feeling like he had won simply because he hadn't shown weakness, hadn't broken down.

But that was then, and now, Tooru knows that his biggest weakness is the refusal to be honest with himself.

This Tooru doesn't try to widen his smile so that his dimples show. Instead, he lets the residual affection from the name that drops from his lips lead the way into a soft, tentative curve, tugging at the corners of his mouth.

_Here I am_ , he is saying, _this is me now. This is all there is and this is all I have_.

He stands, his core tight from the concerted effort to stay, to remain rooted to the hot concrete of the street instead of bolting.

The worst is about to happen, he thinks, Hajime is going to walk right by without even acknowledging him. Or he's about to turn around and leave again.

Tooru doesn't know if he can remain standing if that happens, his knees already feel as though they're about to give out, he tightens his grip on his shopping bags.

"To- Oikawa," The name sounds as though it's been forcibly dragged from Hajime and Tooru barely refrains from wincing.

He watches as his best friend's throat works, struggling to continue, and abruptly, they lock gazes for Tooru to find that Hajime's hazel eyes are clouded with anguish. 

"Can we talk?"

. . .

They end up at a small cafe down the street and Tooru hides behind the show of putting his groceries down properly. Hides his hands that shake, his breath that jumps faster than his heart seems to beat, he wants to climb into one of the bags and hide himself completely.

He's not ready to have this conversation, will never be ready, he's not strong enough, he can't- He takes a deep breath and holds it, tries to use the air to push out all the fear. It doesn't work and he feels his fingertips grow numb. 

Another part of him _needs_ to have this conversation, ready or not, he's already craving the mere proximity of the anchoring presence that he instinctively identifies as Iwa chan, the back of his throat itches with the desire to delve into any conversation and prolong it so that he never has to leave. Or be left.

It's a magnetic pull, the way he's tugged into Hajime's gravitational field and he doesn't try to resist, doesn't want to resist.

He doesn't remember ordering but one of his favourite frappes is served along with Hajime's usual coffee and he can't stop his gaze from leaping to Hajime, not even bothering to conceal his surprise.

_I thought you would have forgotten_ , he wants to say, _I thought you forgot me._

Pulling the drink closer, he wants to take a sip but refrains because he thinks that he might throw up. There's a storm of emotions roiling in his belly and the only thing that can calm it is sitting one tabletop and yet, an unreachable distance away.

He tries not to focus on Hajime's hands, wrests his gaze away from familiar knuckles, fingertips, palms that he can recognise blindfolded. Yet, those hands seem to dominate his vision and his own fingers yearn to inch across the smooth wooden surface for a brief encounter.

There's a silence that makes Tooru fidget, his feet shuffling nervously under the table and he casts around for something to say, even as he drowns in words that he can't, won't let out into the fragile space between them.

But Hajime just looks at him, seeming more like a broken man than the Iwa chan that Tooru remembers.

All at once, Tooru is unbelievably self-conscious. He's got a zit on his left cheek that he didn't bother concealing for a trip to the supermarket and he's wearing his glasses, his hair is mussed from the late afternoon breeze and God, what is he wearing? He clamps down on the urge to glance down and check his outfit.

Jittery sensations dance up and down his arms and he forces down a shiver, because he's been living in a muffled world for so long. Like being able to rebuild his television but never figuring out how to turn the colour or sound back on, he's been trapped in some limbo of existence that has him going and going and not really living.

He hasn't felt so at home in his own skin in just over a year, hasn't felt so right even though the nerves, the uncertainty and fear have him on edge.

There's a pain in his chest that's been needling into his flesh, into his bones and hardening into a solid knot. It loosens here, just infinitesimally and it's not much, but it's something.

It makes Tooru think, _maybe I don't need to be with him, I don't even need to be his friend, I just need to see him from time to time, to know he's well and that's enough for me. That will be enough._

_How are you?_

_Do you eat well? Sleep well?_

_Do you still eat lime popsicles only when you're stressed?_

_Are you still someone I know?_

Questions bubble up along with the old ache of love lost but this Tooru is stronger, clearer and a good year away from the grieving mess he was before. He doesn't let the emotion sweep him away, doesn't let it rise up and overwhelm him, blot him out.

He takes a deep breath, in and out, summons his willpower and control, focuses on what really needs to be said.

"I'm sorry," He tries to ignore the way Hajime's eyes dart to him, shock mixing with bafflement and slowly morphing to horror.

“Don’t,” The word itself seems to have torn itself from Hajime’s throat, strangled and wretched. 

Tooru presses on because he needs to get this off his chest, needs to sleep at night. 

“I’m sorry I pushed you to that, I-”

“ _Don’t_ ,” This time, the word is forceful, bearing the weight of a myriad of emotions and sharp enough for Tooru to involuntarily jerk upward and make eye contact. He catches sight of Hajime’s expression and falls silent, the words fluttering away, dissipating into the air like the vapours rising from Hajime’s coffee. 

Hazel eyes wild, jaw clenched, Hajime looks incensed and helpless, distraught and lost, all at once. Tooru quells the instinctive urge to reach out and smoothen a hand over that taut expression, to soften the blows of life with a touch that says, _I’m here, whatever it is, I’m here and I’m not going anywhere_.

Because that doesn’t hold for them anymore. 

Instead, he emphatically folds his hands on his lap, more a warning to himself than anything. He tries again. 

"You were right,” He grins ruefully, “I was turning into someone else, something else, you-”

“No,” Hajime interrupts fiercely, eyes ablaze and mouth flattening into a thin, unhappy line. Tooru has been dead inside for a long time, but he’s still Oikawa Tooru, and so he draws himself up, the upset igniting into a simmer of anger. 

It feels like champagne buzzing in his veins. He feels alive. He keeps going.

“No,” He says, tasting the word in his mouth and gathering momentum, “No, you listen. I was driving myself insane, turning myself inside out for that goddamn job, I was degenerating into a stranger, someone even I didn’t recognise, someone I didn’t want to be.”

He sucks in a breath, his voice has steadily risen in volume and several customers shoot him inconspicuous looks. Hajime looks stricken, but he’s listening and so, on Tooru goes. 

“I turned into someone else, you tried to tell me and I never listened,” Here, his voice abruptly dries up, cracking into a rasp as he re-lives in visceral detail, the last few months of their relationship, “I never listened.”

“I was falling down this pit and I would have dragged you down with me,” Tooru’s throat begins to hurt but this feels cathartic and he knows deep in his gut that he’s been harbouring this apology in his chest for a year now, “I was making you hate me, hate us, hate yourself. I was becoming this person that neither of us liked, like.”

“Then I should have gone down into that pit with you.” 

At first, Tooru believes that he mishears this low statement and it must show on his face because Hajime makes direct eye contact with him and slams a hand on the table so hard that liquid slops out and onto the surface. 

"Are you listening? _I should have gone down there with you_." 

Eyes wide with alarm, Tooru’s mouth opens and closes, opens and closes again. 

“Wherever the fuck you were going, whatever the fuck you were becoming, I shouldn’t have let go of your hand, we get into shit together and we get out of shit together.”

By now, the entire coffeeshop is staring openly at the two grown men having a meltdown in the corner, but this is a conversation that Tooru isn't going to let slip out of his hands, not again.

"My mistake," Hajime mutters, seemingly to himself, his head in his hands, the picture of misery as fingers knot in dark hair and pull, as though struggling to anchor, or to punish, "It was my mistake."

When he looks back up at Tooru, the air flees from Tooru's lungs. This is a man who has seen his nightmares come to life and dance around his bedroom, this is a man whose eyes are haunted, whose mouth only seems to remember unhappy shapes. 

"Tooru," He starts and then he loses himself, seems to retreat into the shell of Iwaizumi Hajime, something he never used to do. He visibly pulls himself together, broad shoulders pushing back. 

"You were becoming someone else and I couldn't do anything, I was watching you from the sidelines and you were chafing at your own sanity for that godforsaken job and I couldn't do _shit_ ," Hajime's chest heaves as he leans forward, as though trying to impress upon Tooru the force of his words. Out of the corner of his eye, Tooru notices that those tanned hands he loves so much are shaking where they hover over the tabletop. 

"It was like watching you drown and being unable to save you, do you know what that was like?"

Tooru swallows because the magnitude of Hajime's struggle to leave is, all of a sudden, slamming into him and he sways in his seat, as though dealt a physical blow. 

"So I left, some kind of wild card that I thought- Well, I don’t know what I thought, but it felt like the only card I had left," Hajime laughs mirthlessly, a harsh, thin sound that forces a needle straight into Tooru's chest. 

Hajime hangs his head, his entire body slumping and instinctively, Tooru's hand reaches out halfway before he pulls it back and curls his fingers into a fist. 

"My mistake," he repeats, sounding so hollow that it scares Tooru, "I should have drowned with you even if I couldn't save you."

Tooru wants to cry. He wants to sink to the grey cement floor of this hipster coffeeshop and let the sound of his sorrow ricochet off the plant-covered walls, because he could bear his own pain, he could suffer his own loss, but Hajime's pain is cutting him open and there's nothing he can do about it. 

_How can you be sad? You were supposed to be okay, you were supposed to be fine_ , he thinks desperately, _I could have borne anything if you were alright._

Hajime's face looks like a mask, something Tooru doesn't recognize, it's a face that carries an immeasurable amount of torment, with rue written into the lines of his features and agony dictating the set of his mouth. 

"You did what was best," Toou whispers, because his voice has failed him, "For both of us. I needed that wake up call. Or else I never would have realised and I never would have gotten myself out of there."

Slowly, as though greatly weighed, Hajime lifts his head with disbelief and despair swimming in his eyes. 

"You're not- You don't blame me," Hajime states, his brows scrunched up in a way that Tooru loves, he loves so much it starts to become difficult to breathe again and he's barely keeping it together now. 

He shakes his head, slowly and firmly. 

"I hate myself, for letting it get to that," Tooru says, soft but steady, his gaze seeking and holding Hajime's so that he can emphasise this, "But not you. Never you."

"Well, I hate myself for leaving, so I guess we're even, huh," A baleful expression spreads out across Hajime's face. It doesn't alleviate the distress that is etched there but it's a start. 

Between his fingers is a thread of hope, finer than spun silk, and Tooru clings to it, ties his breaths to it.

"Could we stay in touch? Not- We don't have to- I just-," Deep inhale before he ends rather feebly, "It would be nice to know if you're doing alright."

Something clears in Hajime's eyes before he's nodding. 

"Yes," There's a measure of relief woven in with hope and desperation. He clears his throat, "I'd like that, yes."

Before he can change his mind, Tooru pulls out his phone, swipes away an old anniversary photo that he never got around to swapping out for a neutral lockscreen and then pauses. 

"Did you change your number or…?" Another question hangs between them, _Did you try to avoid me? Stop me from calling?_

Abruptly, a sheepish expression crosses Hajime's face and he mumbles something. 

"What?" Heart sinking, his expression folds before Tooru can catch himself and immediately Hajime comprehends what he just insinuated and straightens.

"It's not that I changed my number exactly," Hajime fumbles before trailing into a murmur, "I don't actually have a phone anymore."

"What- Did you lose it? What happened?" Tooru is puzzled but relieved and then he forgets to feel anything when Hajime blushes, the tips of his ears turning red. 

"By the time I wanted to call you, Suga told me that it was such a bad time to do so that it would have been better to let you get back on your feet first before contacting you."

Tooru takes a moment to consider and comes to the conclusion that as with most things, Suga is sadly, painfully correct. Hajime coming back into his life while he was self-destructing would have probably been catastrophic not just for him but for their relationship too. More than he’d already been anyway.

"But it was torture trying not to call you," Hajime continues, the blush staining his cheeks an even deeper shade, "Deleting your number didn't work because I'd memorised it so I just threw my phone away."

Tooru just gapes at him. 

"Work can be done through emails and I just told Suga and Mattsun to email me as well," He shrugs as though he didn't just deal a devastating blow to Tooru's heart, "I didn't really want to talk to people anyway."

"Well, get a new phone and call me when you do," Tooru tells him, striving for coolness despite the fact that he can't feel his legs and his heart is about to explode out of his chest, before promptly losing it, "Or just text or whatever, you don't have to uh, call. My number is still the same."

Their eyes meet. And for a second, the past year falls away, slips off into a different dimension and in that instant, Tooru reads Hajime clear as day. As though they haven't spent an excruciating year apart, as though Tooru hasn't died and been brought back to life over and over again, as though the Hajime in front of him is the one from before and not one who looks like he's been to hell and back. 

In the way it feels to have a jigsaw puzzle piece slide perfectly into place, Tooru feels the world right itself on its axis as he finds complete comprehension in that brief moment, effortlessly back on the same page, even with all that's between them. 

_There's no way we can go back to what we had. But there's a way forward, and perhaps there, we can find something for us._

. . .

When Tooru looks back, that wasn’t the moment his life restarted, but that was the moment he started seeing shapes in clouds and the colours of flowers. Life is never reviewed in a strictly chronological reel of events, rather, they flash by in moments that make us, shape us and gently nudge us on to where we are meant to go. 

In hindsight, that entire year was but a moment in Tooru’s life. An arduous, heavy moment that he now shelves in with all the others, that he carries with him because it’s part of him but not all of him. 

. . .

_A moment in the future:_

Tooru watches as the droplet he’s following on the glass fuses with another tiny smidge of water before it careens down, gaining momentum as it rolls steadily down the window. The world outside is gloomy and he expects lightning, with thunder hot on its heels, any minute now. 

It feels as though a whirlwind has swept through his life, transporting him into a different world. Because now he wakes up to messages from Hajime, sees Hajime for meals, they smile, they _laugh._

He observes how every conversation, every comfortable silence soothes the rampant guilt that hovers over Hajime’s every move, every breath. They’re almost back to where they started, all those years ago, when Tooru found that he couldn’t draw the line between friends and what they were and that he did not want to either. 

Now here they are again, Tooru pressed comfortably against Hajime on the couch, watching the world amble by, perfectly happy to remain like this for a long time. And Tooru is about to throw himself off the precipice, possibly ruining it all, most probably damning himself but he’d rather that than move forward without being completely honest with Hajime. 

“There’s something I have to tell you,” He starts, before taking in a deep breath. Hajime has already turned to him expectantly, affection laid bare on his face and that makes it all the more difficult. 

“After you left, I was a mess - which you know, “ He adds with a wry smile, “Um, and I got really drunk and I- There was someone, I don’t even know who but I-” He doesn’t get to finish his mangled confession because one broad palm comes to cover his mouth and Hajime is looking at him with understanding written in soft eyes and Tooru isn’t sure if this is it, if this is the end and if he’s truly ruined everything and how he will get through it again. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Hajime tells him, voice level and Tooru knows this voice, he _knows_ Hajime isn’t lying, “Whatever you did, it doesn’t matter to me. All that matters is that you’re here now.”

Something inside Tooru cracks but not the way it did before, not in the way that hurts, and he’s flinging himself into Hajime, something he hasn’t done in too long, but his body remembers, knows just which way to fall. Hajime catches him, enfolds him in a way that seems so natural, so right, Tooru can almost trick himself into believing that they really did pick up where they left off. 

Tooru’s fingers creep up and clench the t-shirt material on either side of Hajime as he buries his face in the crook of his best friend’s neck. He never wants to let go. 

“I didn’t think I’d have you here again,” Hajime says quietly after a while. 

“In our house?” Tooru mumbles confusedly into the neckline of Hajime’s shirt, greedily breathing in familiar scents, and he feels Hajime shake his head slightly. 

“In my arms.”

In response, Tooru clings tighter as he squeezes his eyes shut, a stray tear escaping to soak into the fabric because this was also somewhere he didn’t think he would be again in this lifetime. 

_Yet, here we are._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moods for this are:
> 
> Tiger Teeth by WALK THE MOON
> 
> Kintsugi - The Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold/silver/platinum powdered lacquer, making them even more beautiful than before and saving them from being discarded. 
> 
> Chapter title is from Miracle by Chvrches!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this! 
> 
> I'd love to hear what you thought about this~
> 
> Come yell at me on [tumblr](https://redroseinsanity.tumblr.com/)
> 
> The wonderful cathgotyour tongue did [art of Tooru's music box scene!](https://redroseinsanity.tumblr.com/post/614066797041385472/cathgotyourtongue-the-curtains-are-a-wreck)


End file.
